Reflection

Over the past 8 weeks I have learned a great deal about myself. When I left in June for summer vacation I was very excited-I had just won a grant and would be receiving a Smartboard in my classroom in the fall. I had also won a grant to take a course entitled 21st Century Literacy Skills. I felt I was pretty tech savvy—well I was wrong—but this course has taught me so many aspects for myself to move into the 21st Century.




Blogging? Wiki what? It was a bit overwhelming. I found myself truly as a digital immigrant but being immersed for the past 8 weeks in a variety of activities to support 21st Century Literacy skills for students—I too has have broaden my perspective.



I am excited for the new school year to begin, for I have so much that I want to try and explore with my students. Digital storytelling will be my springboard in bring my classes into the 21st Century realm. Each year my principal asks each teacher to set goals for themselves. At the end of the year we need to evaluate ourselves on whether we achieved them. My goal for this year is to definitely incorporate more activities to support the learning styles of the digital natives that will sit before me. It may be baby steps in the beginning—but I know that I will be moving in the right direction.



The journey for me to evolve into a 21st Century teacher began this summer. I expect that the road will be a bit rocky at first when I cross the threshold of my classroom in a few weeks, but I am looking forward to help foster learning for all my students.

Collegial Circles....fostering learning among teachers

I believe that any type of change is difficult to bring about. It can start with one person. One way is to bring great staff development into the schools for teachers. As a teacher, I wanted to learn more, I realized that I needed to change and adapt to the ever changing societal demands. I enrolled in this class for my own desire to be better prepared and incorporate new methodology for bring my own classroom into the 21st Century. Response from recent needs assessments indicate that teachers rank the sharing of ideas, teaching strategies and techniques as their highest priority for in-service staff development.

Collegial Circles provide teachers with structured time for collegial support and study and an opportunity for reflection on classroom practices. The program enables teachers to identify needs for professional growth and to satisfy these needs through sharing a group problem solving. Therefore, a formal support process, Collegial Circles, is established for sharing expertise and for problem solving through group processes.


In our school, teachers can run Collegial Circles. This fall I will invite teachers to meet and create lessons that have students using 21st Century skills. Don’t just tell “SHOW”. Meet in a classroom that has a Smartboard or in the computer lab if your school has to show a digital story that YOU created. Show how blogs or Wiki’s are tools that are easy to set up and foster learning. Share your wonderful ideas. When you open up your classroom to administrators, teachers, and parents, they will see the ways that learning and technology can be infused to provide students with not only the core curriculum but that which reflects 21st Century learning.

The 3 R's to 21st Century Literacy--Reading, wRiting, and Rubrics...

As a literacy teacher--I assess my students regularly with traditional methods. I take running records daily and use this diagnostic information to guide my instruction. To be honest, I have used more traditional means for assessing student’s growth. Having had the opportunity to learn about 21st Century Literacy Skills needed for the future through this summer class, I have had to reflect on my current teaching methods. I need to adapt and make the changes to infuse both traditional skills with those needed for the 21st Century student. I need to make the leap as a literacy educator into 21st Century teaching and learning. Rubrics are not new to me--but I never have used them and really did not see how I could make them fit when providing remedial support to students in literacy.

Rubrics are not new but honestly I have never created or used one with my students. I hear more administrators and teachers talking about rubrics. Having had the opportunity to create one through this class--its not as overwhelming as anticipated. There are many teacher made rubrics floating around out in cyber space which makes it a lot easier now to jump on the rubric bandwagon. The internet is filled with free samples and great ideas about how to create your own. I really enjoyed creating sample rubrics that I will use with my students this year. The following sites are great for providing teachers with rubrics that can be used for all areas of the curriculum.



http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/assess.html

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

Reflection...

I have enjoyed the concept of blogging this week.  I have never really commented on blogs in the past.  I like the versatility of blogging and the "conversation" that is had by those who do leave comments.  I like that they are interactive.  Many sites that I have visited for educational purposes have blog links.  I've never explored them until this week.  Reading Rockets is a great site to support literacy for parents.  I did comment on this as well as the NCTE's website blog.  I did have the opportunity to research blogs that won awards from the Edublog resource page.

All in all I learned alot by creating my blog for 21st Century Skills.  My next blog will be on literacy development for students in grades 1-5.  I think it will be an informative tool for parents.  Stay tune...

Cool tool for digital storytelling.

One tool that was incredible helpful for me creating my digital story was the Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter - 8 1/2"x11". Though many of my pictures are in digital formats and stored on discs--I have tons that are not. I also have pictures that have no negative and are quite old and deteriorating. I had every intention of scanning these photos’s by hand into a standard scanner. I knew that this would take hours and be a quite cumbersome fete.


My mother purchased this photo scanner many months ago from QVC (she loves to buy from these TV shops). After gathering photo's at her house she came upon this scanner tucked in the back of her closet and lucky for me she did. This scanner saved me hours of work. It was easy to set up after scanning the photos; one could save them onto a any photo card or a computer. I was able to scan photos in seconds. The photos were HD quality.  I scanned about 50 photos in about 15 minutes. I was able to scan an old photo that was curled and peeling. I inserted into the photo jacket and now have a copy that is preserved.

This tool will be making its way to school with me in September. I plan on having students create a digital story of their summer. Each student will be able to scan photos and incorporate them into Microsoft Movie maker. This is one technological tool that saves time and helps facilitate digital stories.

Do you know of any other great technological tools for the classroom that you could recommend?

21st Century Literacy Skills....an intro

Well, before this class I thought I was pretty with it with technology. My world has been completely transformed and I am in awe at all that is out there in the way of technology. So I decided that my first post should be about how I have evolved into the 21st Century as a student first. I know that when I return in the fall to school I will feel comfortable incorporating some of these tools into my classroom.




Having the opportunity to dive in and get my feet wet with tools such as wiki's, Picasa, Window's Movie Maker, and Audacity I feel a bit more confident. If anything--I understand my kids and students so much more. Looking at how technology has shaped their world--has changed my perceptions, as well as how I will approach teaching them literacy in the future.



I believe that creating my digital story last week was an assignment that allowed me to integrate a variety of media tools. Hey--I even uploaded it to YouTube--who would have seen that coming. I love to scrapbook as a hobby--but I was truly moved creating a digital version. I have never been able to create a scrapbook about my sister who passed away. I was able to do it digitally--I loved incorporating songs that helped tell my story about her. WE all have stories and I feel very comfortable now bringing this activity into my classroom. My husband is a technologically gifted. He programs games as well as creates websites and so much more that I just don't "get" yet. He said that he was so taken back by my story and the skills that I used to create it. I was truly touched.



So now I blogging...